


On a Red Planet

by thelma_throwaway



Series: The How-It-Was [2]
Category: Firefly, Serenity
Genre: Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, F/M, Guns, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:07:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22127629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelma_throwaway/pseuds/thelma_throwaway
Summary: River and Jayne buy a gun and sit out a sandstorm.
Relationships: Jayne Cobb/River Tam
Series: The How-It-Was [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1592782
Comments: 5
Kudos: 56





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Don't own etc., post-Serenity, everyone is a consenting adult

Another planet, red and strange. There’s dust on everything but the gun seller has covered his stall in heavy carpets and keeps his stock clean. Her hand hovers over the selection laid out, waiting for the twitch in her palm that tells her which will be hers.

“You pullin’ a card or choosing a weapon?” Jayne laughs behind her. The seller smiles politely.

“Please excuse my associate,” she says, fingers trailing over the barrel of an ornate pistol. “He’s a little out of his mind.”

“Ain’t we all,” says the gun seller.

“Not that one.” He pushes her hand away from the pistol. “That’s just for looks. So’s some pretty fop can wear it on his hip n’ shoot his own peter off when he gets too excited.”

“Why would they make it if it’s just for pretty.”

“This one might do.” He plucks one up and places it in her hand. Its big and clunky in her palm, she tests the balance flicking her wrist back and forth. “Too big. You got anything else ‘sides this tourist _ la shi _ ? Somethin’ that won’t fly outta her hand.” 

The gun seller rummages under his table and comes back up with a compact, black pistol.

She takes the gun from him, fingers curling around the grip. Military issue, but not one she’s held before. It spins easily in her hand, comes apart and goes back together smooth. She checks the magazine, the barrel, the sight. River smiles down at it, chews back a crazy thought before it can tumble out of her mouth--  _ baobao _ , we belong together.

The gunseller raises his brows in half-suprise. He’d seen most things.

“Ho! She’sa natural,” he laughs.

Jayne claps a proud hand on her shoulder. His blood moves quick and hot around all this fire power. His thumb rests at the base of her neck. “Pay the man, girly.”

They push through the heavy folds of the gunseller’s tent. Red sand whips through the half-empty market. 

“Wan’ta get a drink?” he yells over the wind. He ducks back into the tent to ask for the nearest bar but comes back empty handed. “Gorram dry town.”

In a back alley they locate a stall manned by a local wrapped in thick, dark cloak, wide brimmed farm hat tied tight under the chin against the sandstorm, selling liquor in sealed brown clay jars. Jayne haggles for two.

They find one of the little stucco shelters built along the streets and crawl in. Jayne kicks away the trash collected inside-- clay shards, torn cloth, wrappers from protein rations, a used rubber. River reads the graffiti scratched above them.

“What language is this?” she runs a finger over the unfamiliar symbols, jumbled with drawings of spaceships and moons, a crude map to somewhere far, far away.

“Who knows,” Jayne grunts and breaks the seals on the amphorae. “These backwater places-- no book learnin’, so’s they start makin’ up their own stuff. Ways to draw numbers and meanings.”

Just as it had been on Earth-That-Was wayback in time. One or two gathering at a well, agreeing that this meant that. The thought expanded exponentially, pressing against her skull. Molecule by molecule, all of human history flying through space and reseeding. Adaptation, survival. The thin spot between the universe and herself that pulsed above her brow felt like it was going to bust open, unfolding infinite-- 

Jayne passes her an open jar and clinks his against it. “Ta civz’lation.”

“To civz’lation.” 

It’s quiet except for the wind beating against the low dome of the shelter. It smells like red minerals, iron in the air. She feels the cool jar in her hand, the band of warmth where her left side meets Jayne’s right. That word again. That halfway-between place.

“Ya like your peace?”

“Hm?” 

“Yer piece, crazy. The sidearm.” 

River draws it and her pulse flutters. It’s about as useful as a spare stabilizer without a magazine but she sees a bright future ahead of it. “Yes.”

“Lemme see.” She hesitates but hands it gently over when he tilts his head, the corners of his mouth threatening one of his wolfy grins. “It’ll service ya. Not much to look at. I’ll help you clean it when we get back.”

“I know how to clean a gun.” She takes a long drink to swallow the steps down her throat, _ disengage magazine, barrel, slide.… _

“I seen you. That ain’t cleanin’.” He lights a stogie, the shelter begins to fill with smoke. “You clean a gun like you’re changing a diaper. Quick, before something gets in your eye.”

He passes her the cigar and doesn’t hide the way he watches her puff on it.“That’s why you can’t borrow my girls.”

Her throat closes under his look. Like he’s touching her. River blows a wobbly smoke ring against the carvings on the ceiling.

“Bad form,” he chuckles. She puffs another ring another into his face. He takes the cigar back. The sandstorm is dying out, sending slithering red waves across the street. They finish their drinks in steady sips and crawl out into the sunlight, winding their way back to the ship through a town covered in fine pink dust. 

“Do you think the captain will let me keep my gun?”

“Why not? You bought it, you need it.” The danger of River is distant to him now-- the time when she couldn’t be trusted with a porcelain plate. “Its’a watchacallit-- business expense.”

“I suppose so… Should I tell Simon?”

Jayne grunts at the thought. “Yer grown.”

River slides the sound of it behind her ear to savor later. 


	2. Prelude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lightly dirt ;)

He catches her by the hair, winding it in a black snake around his fist and wrist as he yanks her back. Bent over his bunk on all fours, neck vulnerable, hands still reaching out towards the gunrack . He’s breathing hot and growling.

“What do you want,” he rumbles into her ear.

“A gun,” she admits. He laughs a gravelly laugh but doesn’t let her go.

“How many times have I told you  _ not _ to come into my bunk.” 

It smells like warm gun oil and the metal bed frame presses into her knees. “nine hundred and forty two. You’ll need to a few more times.”

Without letting go of her hair, Jayne pulls her up to rest on her knees. His hand is still at the base of her skull and his voice is still hot and vibrating against her neck. “Why don’t you just buy a gun. You’re right flush after these last few jobs.”

She ponders this, feeling calm under Jayne’s fingers firm hold on her scalp. “Will you come with me?”

**Author's Note:**

> lashi= shit  
> baobao= baby


End file.
